JohnH

Now that's truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Could be bad advice from the preparer; could be bad listening by the taxpayer. Just recently I had a client call me about a transaction which we had discussed 3-4 months ago. At that time she told me what a friend had told her about the taxation of the capital gains. I explained to her why that advice from her friend was dead wrong and I then gave her the correct information. On this subsequent conversation she repeated the bad advice to me, and when I corrected her she said "But I remember you telling me that on our last conversation." Fortunately I had made notes and more-or-less read them back to her. Either I'm a very bad communicator, she's a very bad listener, or (most likely) she only remembers what she wanted to hear rather than what was said.

Taxpayer has been receiving an IP PIN for many years. We are amending their 2021 return this week. Should we use the IP PIN which was used on the 2021 return, or the IP PIN for the current year? (Don't want to get this wrong since we may not have a chance for a do-over if we miss a technicality).

Good time for the client to set up online access to the SocSec account so they can review history at will.

Mine has been on autopilot for years. Every time the transaction shows up, it brings a smile to my face.

You're right. And I think this was always the actual goal. It wasn't necessarily to chase down people who make minor mistakes in their listing (or even didn't list at all), but rather to create a trap for those who were laundering money IF they were caught by other means. Regardless of whether they had lied on the BOI form or had never filed, the draconian penalties would serve as a wedge to force them to give up info on the major culprits in exchange for penalty forgiveness. Failing to cooperate would be financially devastating. (Of course, cooperating might be even worse in the real world ). Anyhow, we couldn't say any of this to our clients because there remained a real risk of huge penalties for even simple clerical errors, much less not filing, for which they might try to hold us accountable. So we were intimidated into giving them just enough information to scare the hell out of them without being able to offer them any real help - on a simple clerical task that would only take about 15 minutes on average. Makes us all look sort of silly in the eyes of many clients, IMO.

So THAT’s really what it’s all about!

So when the interim final rule is finalized, will it finally be the final rule? Or the interim/interim final rule? Or just "the rule"? Or something else?

Years ago I intentionally began using mail and night drop to encourage my clients to leave their info during off-hours. Eventually email and text accelerated that process. The intent was always to keep my clients out of my office so I could get some work done. But I do miss one aspect of the personal interaction. As we sat there talking about kids, church, politics, etc, I’d be casually pulling all the boilerplate, empty envelopes, and pages “intentionally left blank” out of their stack and shoving it into the shredder. Watching the expression on their faces while that shredder ground away was always priceless.

The custodian also doesn't know if the recipient is a qualified charity. They ask the question, but they depend upon the taxpayer to do their own homework in this regard. I'm sure the custodians don't want to accept that responsibility. Also, many custodians will send the check directly to the charity if the customer requests.

It's up to the taxpayer to determine the amount of QCD to be deducted from the 4a entry in arriving at the 4b entry. Neither the charity nor the IRA trustee will accept responsibility for this adjustment. Thus, the 1099R will always be marked as "Taxable Amount Not Determined." Likewise, the charitable organization will not indicate which contributions are QCD's (although some will provide a footnote the the effect that all or part of the contributions may be, but consult your tax advisor regarding the actual amount). QCD's are simple to do and valuable to borderline non-itemizers, but there is some responsibility to keep track of the amounts.

Sounds like the attorney's advice was worth what the client paid for it (or maybe less).

Following up on the matter of choosing an authenticator. I was on the verge of paying for an authenticator when I ran across a comment about Google offering a free one -(by Lee or Judy, can't recall which). I think something was also mentioned about Google tracking our activity, but I don't see that as a problem since they already track much (or most) of what I do online anyhow. Maybe I'm being naieve. My question is, what benefit might there be in using an authenticator that charges a fee?

Like Tom, I wonder how FinCEN is going to handle this. If you're on their notification list you know that they did send an email this afternoon, but it was a puff piece about nominations to the Bank Secrecy Act Advisory Group. Not that this wasn't important, but the communication failed to address the main thing that's on everyone's mind. I took a peek at their news site and there was no mention of this court case there either.

I don’t see anything unethical about using AI in these situations, provided: 1) the response is reviewed for accuracy; 2) any anomaly or questionable info in the response is researched, 3) full disclosure is provided. (Maybe a standard shorthand will evolve. i.e. **Chat Ai**, <Chat Ai>, or something of that sort)